


Self-Defense

by PastelClark



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Child Abuse, Gen, I wrote this instead of sleeping so don't expect much though, I'd recommend reading the main fic this kid is from first, also depressing as hell, attempted suicide, but this can be read independently if that's your cup of tea, what it looks like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 11:22:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6282619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PastelClark/pseuds/PastelClark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Armor: +10 Defense<br/>Weapon: +7 Attack</p><p>A girl falls down into the heart of Mt. Ebott with a tutu stuffed in a backpack and a pair of ballet shoes hanging from her neck. </p><p> </p><p>(A little side-piece on Integrity from Not As Simple As A Happy Ending.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Old Tutu

**Author's Note:**

> Haven't had time to do much work on the new chapter of Not As Simple this week, so take this junk instead. 
> 
> Integrity/the blue soul human as portrayed here is from [this fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5571245/chapters/12843326), which I would recommend looking at first for, uh, a heightened reading experience, but this is also pretty generic and short, so it can be read on its own or before the other (though it does contain minor spoilers for said fic, obviously).

 

Your dance teacher gives you it, once she finds out you don’t possess one. She digs it out of a storage box in the back room of the studio, shaking off the dust before handing it to you with one of her small, half-closed smiles.

 

“It was mine, when I was a little girl.” She tells you. “It’s not much, compared to the glittery new ones the other kids have, but I was always more of a fan of the traditional pink… It’s good enough for practice, at least.”

 

You take it and clutch it to your chest, trying not to cry, and she hugs you. It’s the first real hug you can remember receiving in your short, miserable life, and you hug back shakily, clinging to her like she’s a lifeline, the only thing that might save you from the darkness that laps at your feet and threatens to submerge you.

 

“You’re going to do great things.” She whispers, softly petting your hair, and you sniffle, burying your face in her sweater and trying to hide the tears you can feel dripping down your face. “Don’t cry, love. I promise, everything will be fine, you'll see. You’ll have the world, one day, just watch.”

 

It’s not the first time you wonder if she knows the truth, if she’s realized that the bruises on your arms, your wrists, and your face aren’t just accidents or the results of the careless play of children, if she’s realized the limp you came to practice with last week wasn’t actually from tripping while walking down the stairs.

 

(Okay, technically that last one hadn’t been a total lie. You had fallen down the stairs, you just hadn’t _tripped._ More like… been nudged, slightly, maybe. You’re too afraid to say pushed. You’re too afraid to think your parents might be escalating to punishments that might just kill you one day.)

 

But she doesn’t say anything, not now, not ever, and you’re too embarrassed and too scared of what could come next to ask, so you don’t, and it stays, as always, your dirty secret that clings to you at all times.

 

…You’re petrified that even if you told her, if she definitively knew, she wouldn’t do anything, just like everyone else that sees the bruises and your exhaustion and your fear and looks the other way. You don’t want that. You want to keep pretending that if she knew, she would save you. You want to keep believing that she might actually love you just a little bit.

 

You think that, given the chance, you could come to love her as well, to think of her as the kind of mother you wish you had. You don’t know. You’ve never really, truly loved someone before.

 

But regardless, you’re not ready to have that dream shattered, so you say nothing, and life moves on.

 

On your first performance, your parents buy you a store-brand tutu, sparkly and magenta, like the other girls own.

 

“Wear this.” Mother tells you. “You can work it off later.”

 

“There are going to be a lot of people there.” Father says. “You are lucky we have allowed you this opportunity, do not embarrass us.”

 

You take the tutu, and give it to a little girl in one of the younger classes who gets teased because her family doesn’t have much money and her dance gear is all second-hand. She holds it in little fists and stares up at you with wide eyes full of awe, while the other girls in her class, the ones that make fun of her, stare in undisguised surprise and jealousy, because everyone knows that you are the teacher’s favorite, the star pupil, and so to them, in their foolishness, you are a god.

 

“Don’t listen to them.” You tell the girl, making sure you’re loud enough for the others to hear, as you remember the words you cling to day in and day out. “You’ll have the world one day.”

 

And then you go on stage, the spotlight shining on the worn pale pink of your tutu, the one that was given to you as a promise, not a threat, and you perform.

 

You are beautiful.

 

Later, away from the prying eyes and flashing cameras, when you are home and alone, your mother slaps you across the face so hard you see stars, and sends you to bed without any dinner for your disobedience.

 

You wonder if that’s still supposed to be a punishment, these days. It’s not like they feed you often even when you haven’t made them particularly angry. Perhaps it’s all just par for the course, now.

 

And so you sit in your room, blood running freely down your cheek where your mother’s ring cut you. Normally that’d be fine, because you’re used to the sight of your own blood by now, but you ran out of bandages days ago and haven’t had the chance to steal some more, and your cheek won’t stop bleeding. If the blood gets on your sweater, your mother will be angry and you will be punished.

 

Your eyes find the tutu sitting next to you on your bed, and with sudden inspiration, you push up the top-skirt and grab one of the thin strands of tulle underneath, tearing it free of the stitching. Tying it around your head so that it covers the sluggishly bleeding cut, you stare at yourself in the cracked mirror on the wall.

 

Your hair is a mess, sticking out every direction and bunching up around where the makeshift bandage is tied. Your eyes are teary and sunken, dark shadows beneath them, and your skin is chalky and pale against the dark bruise already starting to form on your cheek that clashes with the pink tulle on top of it.

 

The grace and poise you conducted on stage is gone, and you are instead left pathetic and ruined.

 

You are the ugliest thing you have ever seen.

 

You sit and look at the tutu in your lap, staring down at the washed-out old pink as your cheek throbs and your arm aches where your mother grabbed it before she smacked you. It hurts, a little, but you know there will likely be worse tomorrow.

 

…Who are you kidding? It’s always worse the next day. There’ll be no food either, because it’ll be a Sunday and the store you usually ‘borrow’ from will be closed. That is, if your parents would even let you outside. They’ll probably just lock you in the hall closet again.

 

You really hate that closet.

 

Clutching the tutu to your chest, you cry, your frame wracked with sobs that eventually fade to a helpless, desperate laughter that borders on the hysterical as tears stream down your face, which you then press to the soft, pink fabric, breathing in the familiar smell of chalk and dust that clings to it, even now.

 

This is enough, you tell yourself. This is your one-way ticket out of this house where all your parents did is hurt you and out of this town where no one ever cared enough to stop them.

 

One day, you will be free. One day, someone will love you.

 

For now, though, this— Faded pink and lace that feels like something close to hope… This is all you need.

 

**_(Finally, a protective piece of armor.)_ **

****

****


	2. Ballet Shoes

 

You don’t mean to, you swear you don’t mean to.

 

You have never wanted to hurt anyone, ever.

 

But you are exhausted and angry, and when the kids who love to hurt and make fun of you for your grades, your dirty clothes and unwashed face, corner you and push you around like they usually do when they’re bored, things go wrong.

 

Normally, you’d just put up with it, but things have been really bad for a while now, particularly today. All you’ve eaten in the last three days is a couple candy bars you nicked from the general store, and when you got desperate enough to steal food from the kitchen this morning, you dropped a bowl of oatmeal and your parents caught you. You’ve got cuts on your hands and knees from the shards of porcelain they made you pick up crawling on all fours, your body is bruised black and blue from where they hit you, and you’re still shaky from being locked in the suffocating darkness of the closet for the entire morning.

 

You are not in a good, or even manageable place.

 

You handle things, at first. When they call you names, you ignore them. When they push you around and pull your hair, you let it happen. It’s not like you haven’t had much worse. Even when they take your bag and throw it around among themselves you accept it. You are worried about your tutu tucked inside, sure, but they haven’t opened the bag, and so long as they don’t take it out and mess with it directly, this is fine.

 

Yes, this is fine. You are more than used to this.

 

It’s when a boy makes a grab for the ballet shoes hanging by their ribbons around your neck, something none of the other children have dared do before, that you snap.

 

Those shoes are one of the few items you possess that you value, a reminder that there is something you are good at, that there is something you can do that gives you value. Those shoes are part of the only thing in your life that gives you any semblance of happiness.

 

You need those shoes.

 

This boy cannot take them. He cannot touch them.

 

_He can’t touch them._

In a blind panic, you lash out, kicking him hard against his legs and sending him toppling to the ground.

 

You have disabled the threat… You should stop.

 

But you don’t.

 

When has anyone ever stopped hurting you when you couldn’t fight back?

 

You kick him in his chest, in his side. You kick him again, and again, and again.

 

Distantly, you hear the sound of something snapping as your foot comes down on his ribcage, of him crying out, the kids around you shrieking and yelling in shock, but you can’t stop, you _won’t stop,_ because it feels good to be the one inflicting pain rather than receiving it for once in your life.

You are sick and tired of hurting, of suffering.

 

No more.

 

If it won’t all stop, then you’ll _make it stop_.

 

You kick, you cry, and you scream, over and over, for all the misery and grief your world has given you.

 

And then strong arms grab you, hauling you back and away from the bloody boy lying on the ground, and it is like coming up for air as you look at the carnage you have wreaked properly for the first time, pulled out of the numb daze of anger that held you.

 

The boy isn’t moving, shallow breaths wracked with whines of pain the only sign he is still alive.

 

_Oh god._

 

What have you done?

 

Distantly, you hear the wail of sirens, and you freeze, recognizing them instantly.

 

You know what those sirens mean.

 

The police will arrest you. Your parents will find out. They will kill you.

 

You have no doubt in your mind. They will absolutely, definitely, kill you for this, leaving you locked up in a closet until you starve to death or just getting to the point and beating you till something irreparable breaks.

 

…They might even do both.

 

You can’t stay here.

 

Not giving yourself time to think, you react on instinct, smashing your head backwards into the face of the teacher holding you. There’s a crunching sound, probably her nose, and she drops you with a scream. In an instant, you’re moving, grabbing your bag from where it lies on the ground and dodging the surprised teachers before running the opposite direction of the encroaching sirens.

 

You run and run, out of town and away from everything you’ve ever known without looking back once.

 

You don’t know where you’re going, but it doesn’t really matter. You can’t go back. All you want is a place where you won’t be discovered.

 

When you find Mt. Ebott, you almost laugh at how perfect it is. You’ve heard the stories of this place, everyone has. No one who goes up ever comes down. Cursed, they say.

 

You climb up, and find the hole at the top, staring down into the darkness below. You suppose you’re supposed to feel something now, some inkling to turn back, thoughts to your life lost and the love you will miss out on. You don’t, you just feel tired.

 

You jump.

 

In the end, you’re just like your parents. All you know how to do is hurt other people.

 

The world would be better off without a monster like you.

 

**_(These used shoes make you feel incredibly dangerous.)_ **

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to come and talk to me over on tumblr [here](http://pastel-clark.tumblr.com/) about Sans, Undertale, the Fallen Children, or any number of things.


End file.
